Bayonetta

In early 2010 (late 2009 in Japan), Bayonetta was a wonderful surprise for all lovers of stylish action games. The genre born eight and a half years earlier with Devil May Cry saw a new milestone arise, precisely thanks to the one who created the progenitor, that is Hideki Kamiya, who in the meantime had abandoned Capcom and founded PlatinumGames together with other ex of the Osaka house .

Bayonetta has a lot in common with its spiritual predecessor, but it is also a game that can add something interesting to its genre. It starts from a common base, with Devil May Cry: both are third-person action games in which the killing of enemies and passing levels is only a small part of what the player can and must aim for. In stylish actions, in fact, what matters is not so much winning, but winning well. And in Bayonetta, marrying this philosophy is fundamental to be able to appreciate all that the game has to offer.

It starts with a frenetic, elegant, exaggerated and fun fighting system, which tests reflexes and stimulates the desire to try new solutions, which is brought closer without problems immediately, but which requires study and training to be mastered at the better. And, above all, that at some point it begins to give great addiction. To the taste and the need to learn to generate increasingly spectacular (and at the same time effective) combos, Bayonetta adds an ingenious element: the dodge that, if performed with perfect timing just a moment before the attack of the enemy hits, makes start the Sabbath Temporale (Witch Time), or a slowdown of the time valid only for enemies. Bayonetta continues to move at normal speed, in that short period of time, and can thus land her shots practically undisturbed.

If you have never tried the Temporal Sabbath, I envy you. The way it fits into Bayonetta's combat system is one of the tastiest things in video game history.

In general, certainly the combat system of this game is among the best ever, and the thing that I noticed with great satisfaction is that it is still very pleasant today. I will tell you more: I don't think anything better has been seen in these eight years. A game can be old for many reasons, but it is certainly more old if, over the years, its genre of belonging evolves and sees new paradigms born. With stylish action games it doesn't seem to have happened, and Bayonetta remains therefore still today among the best exponents of the trend, if not the best ever.

The same cannot be said of all the other aspects of the game, of course, starting with the technical realization which, unlike the combat system, more clearly denounces the weight of the years. This is also because the game has not been subject to particular reinterpretations. The same Bayonetta we saw on the Xbox 360 and PS3, and a few years later on the Wii U, also came up on Switch. As mentioned in the preview a few days ago, the resolution is the same as the original versions of 2010 (720p), which perfectly matches the Switch screen when playing in portable mode, but it is a little difficult to be satisfactory when it is coated on the 3840x2160 pixels of a 4K 55 ”, like the one used for the test. Fortunately, however, the frame rate is convincing: the game remains practically fixed at 60fps and this allows you to enjoy the best of its nature of frenetic action, where timing and fluidity are essential elements. It is certainly not the technical realization, the reason why a Switch owner should approach Bayonetta. Those who want the perfect version of Kamiya's action game would probably do better to turn to that release a few months ago for PC. On Switch, the whim to relive (or live for the first time) the adventures of the witch of Umbra is certainly to be found in other reasons, which we will talk about shortly.

Some stylistic solutions, like many of the interlude scenes created with static or little animated images, may also seem a bit old. And I must also point out that, to replay it today, some of the boss fights, as well as some moments of the game in general, seemed a little too cumbersome in some of their mechanics. I refer only to all those moments in which the game detaches itself from its basic combat system and offers alternative solutions such as jumps to be performed at certain times, buttons to be pressed when the appropriate warning appears on the screen (but without the softness and clarity that usually characterizes quick time events in other games) and things of this type. These are small variations that are not always spot on on a main theme that is fantastic as it is and therefore there would not even have been a need to season with "external" elements.

If the graphics may seem a pinch dated from a technical point of view, from the artistic side it has not aged even a bit and the exaggerated and trashy style with which the settings, characters and many enemies that face each other during the adventure are made , in my opinion, is still fantastic and worthy of being appreciated today by those who have not had the opportunity to do it long ago.

The day comes in the life of every faithful PC disciple because he doubts his belief. For me Bayonetta was to blame: an absolute dream of an action game , the true and best legacy of Devil May Cry - and I never had the right platform for it! It never came on the PC anyway, the Playstation 3 version was Murks and then you should suddenly buy a WiiU for the second part!

And now that I have long since resigned myself to my bleak life full of gray and ordinary action games - those in which I cannot feed my enemies to a dragon twirled out of my own witch hair - Bayonetta dances onto the PC from nowhere! And has lost none of its glamorous, brutal fascination since 2009.

The witch hammer

Why was Bayonetta so painfully missing from my PC collection? Because I missed one of the best games of its kind. The action masters at Platinum Games, above all Devil May Cry inventor Hideki Kamiya, have taken their genre expertise to the extreme here, Bayonetta is almost the perfection of stylish butchering . Hardly any other game conjures up such fluid, so crazy, so spectacular fights on the screen. I playfully unleash a whole barrage of impressive combos, give explosive emphasis to my punches and kicks with hand and arm pistols and reach into Bayonetta's witch bag of tricks to let huge magic fists fall on my enemies or to kick them into a spontaneously conjured guillotine. Gorgeous!

From the first minute, Bayonetta demands everything from me: only high scores are achieved if you deliver a good show and line up different combat tricks without putting in yourself. And the witch of the world not only avoids attacks, she casually waits until the very last moment and then dodges by a hair - then I glide across the field in bullet time for a few seconds. I also unlock a diverse arsenal of unique weapons and skills as the game progresses.

Surprisingly good on the PC

In all of this, Bayonetta is not an action game for knotting fingers. And therefore works much better than expected with a mouse and keyboard! With all its ambition and diversity, it only needs two attack buttons : hitting and kicking. I trigger combos by connecting them in different sequences and timings, for a ranged salvo I simply hold the button down after a punch or kick. Does this sound like a system that fits the left and right mouse button perfectly? Right!

And because I can freely assign all buttons, I can set other key functions such as dodging and jumping exactly as I need them. In some places, however, the game awkwardly reveals its console origin. For example, where I let go of a wild pistol salvo in all directions with the gamepad by rotating my stick once and then pressing the attack button, I have to move the mouse in a circle here - which feels strange. And the camera can only be moved surprisingly slowly and stubbornly, even with full mouse sensitivity. Overall, Bayonetta just works a bit better with the controller - but it is also much more pleasant to play with the mouse and keyboard than most of its genre colleagues.

Old but not old-fashioned

Technically, Bayonetta is a successful PC port , but not a revolution: it runs smoothly, problem-free and looks nicer in 1080p and 60 FPS than on the consoles back then. But it does come from the year 2009. You can see that in the partly not too sharp textures. The particle effects are also no longer fresh, although the game is still clattering and cracking. Another shame: Although up to sixteen times MSAA anti-aliasing can now be activated, clear podium formation can still be seen even at the highest level.

But the first-class animations are still at the top. And style has that thing! Sure, the design is not for everyone - sometimes absurdly grotesque, sometimes almost ridiculously exaggeratedly sexy, always unmistakably Japanese. And the story about the title witch's memory loss is often too confused to really get carried away. But for that, the game and its characters sparkle with creativity! If you don't always need your action dead serious, you can expect a unique experience at Bayonetta.

If you value realism in games, if anime and Japanese atmosphere arouse your dislike, if you are looking for serious stories, Bayonetta is not for you. However, if you love to let your imagination run wild, laugh and just have fun, and action games are your favorite genre, get ready for one of the most crazy, comic, sexy and bloody adventures of your life.

At first glance, Platinum Games seems to be a clone of Devil May Cry with a woman in the lead role. Indeed, every enthusiast of Dante's adventures will surely find numerous references to his favorite series, such as the combat system, allowing the use of both pistols and a sword, as well as certain similarities in the appearance of opponents. It is hardly surprising, however, since Bayonetta is responsible for Hideki Kamiya, creator of Okami , Viewtiful Joe and the first Devil May Cry . That is why I get the impression that the latest work of Platinum Games is not so much a copy, but rather a spiritual heir to the iconic games considered by many. It does not use only known solutions, but creatively develops them.

Let's meet Bayonetta, a woman who gives a new meaning to the word "witch". Let's forget about the black cat, cauldron, stooped figure and inseparable flying broom. The slim heroine with feminine curves emphasized by the tight overalls does not deal with casting spells. Equipped with two pairs of pistols, one of which is attached to his legs, he fights for lives daily with hordes of angels. She is athletic, flexible, agile and extremely strong. She moves with the grace of the models, but she swears like a shoemaker. What's more, he can summon giant demons from the depths of hell, which can easily smash even the biggest opponents. The element channeling her power are hair, which help in the manifestation of demons, and in breaks they form a suit. However, they cannot be in two places at the same time, so when we summon a hellish ally, we reveal the heroine's body at the same time. Madness? Of course, but how it looks!

However, the appearance does not end there. Fighting is the heart of the game, and it has been developed perfectly. It cannot be called innovative, but I have not encountered such well-balanced and intuitive mechanics of striking. Everything is based on two buttons responsible for attacks with weapons held in the hands and those attached to the legs. In addition, the right trigger also plays an important role, which is used to dodge. However, this is not all. If we manage to use it in the moment immediately preceding the enemy hitting us, it is enough that we will not receive any damage, we will activate the so-called Witch Time, or slowing down time to deal with enemies before they know what's going on. Without mastering this skill, there is nothing to think about defeating the more difficult opponents, especially at higher levels of difficulty.

The blows are inflicted in a specific rhythm, which is quite easy to learn. When this happens, we launch attacks almost intuitively. They look stunning, and their effects are often very bloody. When during the game we find access to other types of weapons (including shotgun, whip and sword), real experimentation begins. Each weapon can be assigned to arms or legs. We have two configurations at our disposal, between which we can smoothly switch in real time using the left trigger. Let's add to the fact that in a special store (run by a demon, and how) you can buy an additional copy of each weapon. Taking all this into account, we get an impressive number of combinations to try.

However, this is not the end of attractions. Bayonetta can also take the form of an animal: a fast leopard or a black crow. It can also fall into a cloud of bats, thanks to which it eliminates the damage taken. The opponents' special finishes look particularly effective with the help of the torture tools invoked from hell, which the Inquisition used. For example, we can kill an enemy by sending him inside an iron maiden, slamming the door with spiked doors, hanging on a chain or crushing like a vice.

The creators apparently decided that the extensive combat system alone is not enough and made sure that players were not bored. That is why, apart from standard clashes, we take part in a crazy car chase, ride a motorbike, surf the rough sea, and even, like the baron Münchhausen on a ball, we fly, riding a rocket.

No less interesting is the world itself in which we have to fight. The game is set in the fictitious European city of Vigrid. However, as it turns out quickly, we don't spend a dozen or so hours here exploring the historic streets, due to alternative worlds occupying the same space. It sounds a bit complicated, but it boils down to the fact that heaven, hell and purgatory overlap our reality. Heavenly armies are not visible to ordinary mortals because they are in Purgatory most of the time. This in turn looks just like our world, with the slight difference that magical creatures are perfectly visible in it, while living people appear like transparent ghosts.

As the game progresses, the boundary between the real and the unreal disappears. We travel between worlds, permeating from one to another. We use the power of the moon to mock gravity and run along the walls as if they were a floor. In Heaven, we often have to traverse locations that remind us of the paintings of Salvador Dali. When we discover that concepts such as up and down do not matter, and the terrain that until recently was under our feet is above our heads, we will feel the power of imagination of the creators of Platinum Games. Some locations are simply breathtaking, whether we travel the celestial paths, climb the top of the skyscraper, or find ourselves in a cosmic vacuum, fighting the mighty god.

Bayonetta, although as a witch theoretically represents the forces of hell on Earth, is not an antihero. He struggles with the heavenly hosts, but often they have a more demonic appearance than the monsters she summons. In addition, our protagonist does not stumble on behalf of the Darkness, but on her own. Of course, this does not affect the balance of Good and Evil in the universe, but it takes a long time before the heroine discovers how extremely important role she has to play. The plot is not as original as the gameplay or visual layer, but it is followed with extreme pleasure. The cutscene scenes are perfectly directed. Acting is at a high level, although sometimes long sequences of fights make you think only about finally being able to make use of the rain.

There was also something for insightful players who like to follow all types of cultural references. The most important are the opponents themselves, who were classified according to the heavenly hierarchy dating back to the Middle Ages. Platinum Games has also prepared something for players who remember the old days. During the game we will find not only numerous references, but also entire gameplay sequences referring to the known titles of the SEGA company.

It takes a dozen or so hours to complete the game the first time (with scrolling cutscenes around ten), but according to the genre's tradition, in order to get everything possible out of the game, you have to end it many times. So don't be surprised if you don't see Hard mode at first. This one appears only after finishing the game on Normal and is actually difficult. Platinum Games has shown that, unlike many modern developers, they have not forgotten what balancing the difficulty level is. Bayonetta is one of the last games in which Easy is really simple, Normal is a challenge and Hard requires a lot of combos.

Graphic design may not be of the highest quality, but it makes up for the smoothness of the animation (constant 60 frames per second), location and character design. Bayonetta moves with cat agility, and the transition between blows are extremely natural. It's nice to see how the heroine creates a portal through which she transports over the opponent. Then he knocks him down, then jumps into the air and turns into a crow, who kills him with levitating blades, and all this takes place in just a few seconds. In most locations, we can move the camera, but it is taking place at such a sluggish pace that it is better to rely on the default settings for a significant part of the time. In some moments, the camera automatically accelerates to intensify emotions thanks to its dynamics, unfortunately it often ends in temporary distraction, which can negatively affect the heroine's health.

Finally, it is worth mentioning music, because it also impresses with its diversity, although it is not exactly what we would expect from an action game. Of course, there are pompous sounds in the style of God of War, there are angel choirs emphasizing the surreal atmosphere of paradise domains, but there are also songs that are difficult to classify, including a rather fascinating rework of the popular jazz hit from years ago, Fly Me To the Moon, in j-pop arrangement. I have to admit that some water passed before I got into the specifics of this music. Over time, I realized that I could not imagine this game in a different sound setting. It's weird, crazy and diverse, just like all Bayonetta

The work of Platinum Games surprises and amazes, making us rub our eyes with amazement every now and then, burst out laughing or clenching our teeth, trying to find a way to defeat the huge boss. The combat system, humor, unconventional heroine and breathtaking locations can be addictive, and after watching the end credits the finger directs the knob on the New Game button.

Artur "Metatron" Falkowski

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